Asahi Kasei reports huge rise in profits

9:46 AM MST | February 5, 2014 | Deepti Ramesh

Asahi Kasei reports an 85.5% rise in net profits for the fiscal first nine months, ended 31 December 2013, compared with the year-ago period, to ¥66.07 billion ($652 million). Nine-month sales increased 15.5%, to ¥1.38 trillion, because of a good performance in the company’s homes segment, higher sales volumes in the company's chemicals segment and for pharmaceutical products in the health-care segment, and higher exports as a result of the weaker Japanese currency, Asahi says. During April–December 2013, the global economy was stable, with a...